He starred as Albert Peterson in “Bye, Bye, Birdie,” showed off his villainous side as Dr. Orin Scrivello in “The Little Shop of Horrors” and now Connor Keef said he will debut his first serious role as Tom Joad in Frank Galati’s “The Grapes of Wrath.”
The production opens Oct. 15 and runs through Oct. 18 in the Performance Center. Performances on Oct. 15-17 begin at 7:30 p.m. and the Oct. 18 performance begins at 2 p.m.
The freshman theatre arts major describes his character as the voice of reason.
“He’s very focused on what his goal is and he’s patient,” Keef said. “But if he’s poked too often, he’ll burst –— he’ll explode.”
Keef said the mystery and seriousness of Joad is his favorite aspect of playing the character as well as the most challenging part.
“There is so much room for improvement,” Keef said. “But in classes I know that I can grow still.”
The play, which is adapted from John Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Award winning novel, chronicles the Joad family’s journey searching for fruit picking jobs in California after being forced off their Oklahoma farm during the Great Depression, Elliot Wasserman said.
“The establishment they faced was cruel and opportunistic,” said the chair of performing arts. “I don’t think you can watch the play without considering the possibility of certain parallels, which, unfortunately, we can still draw today, but which I will leave to the audience to draw.”
Though not a musical, the show does include some 1930s-style music to help with scene changes.
“It’s very much like a movie in that it has a lot of short scenes that have to be set up,” Wasserman said. “Unlike a movie, we can’t jump to the next scene, we must move to the next scene in real time.”
The new stage provides an excellent canvas for a play like this one, Wasserman said.
“I think we’re ushering in a new period in USI’s theatrical design,” Wasserman said. “Our outreach has expanded with the new building.”
The cast, which consists of 26 actors, including three children, is primarily made up of students with a few local actors, Wasserman said.
“I’ve never really played the ‘crazy’ or ‘mean’ character in a show before,” said freshman theatre arts major Maggie Browne.
Browne, who plays Elizabeth Sandry, said her character’s overzealous religious nature is one of the most challenging parts of the show for her.
“She feels that she can directly interpret the word of God and that it is her religious duty to distribute that word to everyone,” Browne said. “She uses intimidation and scare tactics to get what she wants.”
Elizabeth embodies the many people alive during the Great Depression who were left with nothing but their faith, Browne said.
“The most challenging part of the play, in general, is doing the book justice,” Browne said. “This is one of the most popular books of the 20th century and our audience members will most likely be familiar with the material and that limits our margin for error.”
Browne, a fan of the original novel, “Grapes of Wrath,” said the play includes almost all of the original dialogue from the novel.
“This isn’t the type of show where audiences will leave smiling and feeling uplifted,” Browne said. “Hopefully they will leave feeling emotionally invested and appreciative of the people who lived during that time. If we give them a little slice of perspective, I think we did our job.”